Getting very close...no more sleeps

Foreman material!

my packing supervisor fell asleep on the job!

Last year's cloud,  when my bike was 2 days late  arriving in Europe, has turned into this year's silver gold  lining as Emirates gave me  a gold frequent flyer  card for 2015 as an apology. This allows me a whopping 46kgs of checked luggage.  Luxury!

So since it's a year for taking 2 bikes with me, instead of sending 1 bike freight via Jetta, I can avoid  all the fuss that goes with finding the freight section of an airport etc etc and can take all my gear  with me.

32kilos

10kilos

too easy and  with 4 kilos to spare there is no need to cripple myself with an extra  heavy carry on burden.

5 days and counting

With nothing left to do before I fly out except have coffee/lunch with friends, get out on the bike, get my hair cut and the cat groomed, race a TT and pack, it's time to start being a bit more specific about where we're going on this year's epic adventure. Hmm...almost nowhere new! So any adventures will be situational rather locational...and according to Google spell check both those words are made up! 

 So, after I've cleared customs, met up with Tabatha, got the car, driven down to Sankt Johann in Tirol to pick up stuff, stayed a night and then driven down south into Italy...we arrive at Pedavena for an 11 day stay.

We're staying at Casera al Capitel on the road to Passo Croce d'Aune

where we stayed last year was beyond Le Fiere which is bottom left of the map and the climb to that house defeated me.....never did manage it without putting my foot down to get the  BP down to manageable levels!

I know I can ride this year's road 'cos I've done it already, but even so it's a bit of a heave at the end of every ride/shopping/laundromat trip!

To get better idea of where Pedavena is:

Pedavena..just north of Feltre which is almost dead centre in this pix


  

and this is our house...sleeps 8..there are just 2 of us!

It's a ~ 3 hour drive to get there but we can't get in until 1800 so we may go for a ride in Sankt Johann first or perhaps visit the Oetzi museum at Bolzano

Pre holiday tasks.....

In no particular order

1.  Stock up on the cats' fave food!

 and make sure they are in good health with

 http://www.justforcats.com.au/

2.  Raid the library and download a zillion audio books to my ipod classic...so sad Apple have stopped producing this "classic" ;-).  One book I downloaded  has 29 discs and plays for 35 hours which should see see me through more than one long haul flight.

these are only a fraction of my electronic library

3.  Start gathering/packing/weighing/culling/re-weighing...repeat and add at least some cold weather gear for the Dolomiti

 4.  TRY to buy extra cash only to find euros are in short supply, except  for 5 euro notes

5. Curb excitement by thinking of what's ahead..24 hrs long haul economy agony

pix acknowledgement...Trek..maker of my TT bike

6. Re-check weather forecast..now that's more like it!  

11 weeks of training in the mountains then racing on the flat

Resurrection of my travel blog....again!

I’m about to go on another cycling adventure in Europe and my blog will go live once again.....no point in keeping it going when I’m back home as I lead a very boring life.

28/6  fly out to Munich then Sankt Johann in Tirol, Austria for a night

30/6-11/7..Pedavena..a hamlet at the base of Monte Avena and our house is on the road to  Passo Croce d’Aune..a bit of a climb to get home each day but nowhere near as bad as last year’s grovel. Climbs will be Passo San Boldo, Croce d’Aune,  Monte Grappa . 

11/7-18/7  Canazei..to ride in particular Passo Pordoi /the Selle Ronde group  and the Fedaia

18/7-25/7  Cortina D’Ampezzo for the Giau, Falzarego, Valparola, Tre Cime, Tre Croce, etc etc

25/7- 1/8  Bormio for the best of the best ...Stelvio, Mortirolo and Gavia (hopefully better than last 

year)

 1/8-8/8  Feltre for the Palio and to break out the TT bike. 

8/8-12/8 Treviso..for a change of scenery and  more flat land training

12/8-22/8 Hartberg, Austria for 7 races  Prologue, crit, TT, HC and 3 x RR (Alex gets 1 extra race)

22/8-29/8 Sankt Johann in Tirol for 2 races ..TT and RR

29/8 to Denmark  for the World Masters Road Championships..TT at Hobro on Wed 3/9^h and RR at Aarlborg on Sunday 6^th

Then back St J to dump my stuff and back to Munich to fly out. 

11/9  back home

One day when we're  in Austria we plan on going to see this beauty which I last visited in 1968!:

There ‘ll be regular updates on FB with pretty pix. ..pls feel free to “friend” me the more detailed stuff will be on this blog.